


my love is no good

by prettydizzeed



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettydizzeed/pseuds/prettydizzeed
Summary: She raises her children to run with sharp objects.





	my love is no good

**Author's Note:**

> i should be studying for finals and i promised i'd update a different fic like three weeks ago but this happened instead
> 
> title is from "Queen of Peace" by Florence + the Machine (thank you Ira for the suggestion)

She raises her children to run with sharp objects.

They spar, and she stands back, hair pulled tight enough to sting, and nods instead of saying good job. 

They hit the mat. Again. Again. Something about broken bones echoes in her inner ear, but she doesn't remember the rhyme. Again. She presses ice packs into their shoulders, but she doesn't kiss their bruises anymore.

The Clave looks at her heels and forgets she could ever run. Her husband looks at her skirt and forgets he ever took it off of her. She keeps a lint roller on the bedside table, behind the knives.

When she was young, she cut off all her hair with a single sword stroke and told her mother it was an accident. She had to train extra hours for a month to ensure that her carelessness would not be repeated. She remembers the short strands curling beneath her ears. The young man who shook her hand and mispronounced her name and introduced himself as Robert and said he liked her hair.

She raises her daughter to leverage a handshake, to flip someone twice her size onto his back without flinching.

When she was young, she could throw a dozen knives in ten seconds. She could run for miles in leather. They only let her into the field when someone else was injured. She never told them the ways their outfits could be improved, for fear it would give them an excuse to make her spend the rest of her life fixing them. She started pretending she couldn’t cook, even when she missed the taste of her grandmother’s recipes in the middle of the night, how she could balance the ingredients on instinct like a fighting pose, muscles shifting in perfect equilibrium.

Her husband asks her son if he is in love, and she does not turn to ask him the same question. Instead, she tries to remember the last time she had a haircut. The last time she measured spice into the palm of her calloused hand.

The last time someone held it.

She tells her husband she knows all of it, and she smiles. She is descended from a long line of women who fought with their teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr @basilhallward to talk about the absolute queen of character development


End file.
